"George R. R. Martin - Arms of the Kraken" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin George R R)

"Gormond. Gormond Goodbrother, if it please my lord."
"It is the Drowned God we must please. Have you been drowned, Gormond
Goodbrother?"

"On my name day, Damphair. My father sent me to find you and bring you
to him. He needs to see you."
"Here I stand. Let Lord Gorold come and feast his eyes." Aeron took a
leather skin from Rus, freshly filled with water from the sea. The priest
pulled out the cork and took a swallow.

"I am to bring you to the keep," insisted young Gormond, from atop his
horse.

He is afraid to dismount, lest he get his boots wet. "! have the god's work
to do." Aeron Greyjoy was a prophet. He did not suffer petty lords ordering
him about like some thrall.
"Gorold's had a bird," said The Sparr.

"A maester's bird, from Pyke," Gormond confirmed.

Dark wings, dark words, "The ravens fly o'er salt and stone. If there are
tidings that concern me, speak them now."
"Such tidings as we bear are for your ears alone, Damphair," The Sparr said.
"These are not matters I would speak of here before these others."

"These others are my drowned men, god's servants, just as I am. I have no
secrets from them, nor from our god beside whose holy sea I stand."

The horsemen exchanged a look. "Tell him," said The Sparr, and the youth
in the red cloak summoned up his courage. "The king is dead," he said, as
plain as that. Four small words, yet the sea itself trembled when he uttered
them.

Four kings there were in Westeros, yet Aeron did not need to ask which one
was meant. Balon Greyjoy ruled the Iron Islands, and no other. The king is
dead. How can that be? Aeron had seen his eldest brother not a moon's
turn past, when he had returned to the Iron Islands from harrying the Stony
Store. Balon's grey hair had gone half white whilst the priest had been
away, and the stoop in his shoulders was more pronounced than when the
long-ships sailed. Yet all in all the king had not seemed ill.
Aeron Greyjoy had built his life upon two mighty pillars. Those four small
words had knocked one down. Only the Drowned God remains to me. May
he make me as strong and tireless as the sea. "Tell me the manner of my
brother's death."
"His Grace was crossing a bridge at Pyke when he fell, and was dashed
upon the rocks below."

The Greyjoy stronghold stood upon broken headland, its keeps and towers
built atop massive stone stacks that thrust up from the sea. Bridges
knottei Pyke together; arched bridges of carved stone, and swaying spans